What is it about being young that prompts us to pretend we are something we are not? What is it about youth that makes the allure of mistakes almost seductive?
It is in our youth that we discover the dark side of humanity. As children we are blissfully unaware of all the different forms of pain and suffering humanity is prone to losing themselves in; but past puberty and angst, we discover the worlds of depression and anxiety that envelop us into their bosom, as if they had been awaiting to embrace us. It is in these primal years of adulthood that for the first time we are aware of life’s most gruelling elements — and due to our naivete, we assume it will last forever. We do not have the wisdom of adults in their later years, and we no longer can cling to the innocence of our childhood. Thus we are left in a limbo, where things go wrong and all we want to do is hide, because we firmly believe that what breaks will be broken forever.
It is in this series that I will examine from hindsight what it feels like to be trapped in this narrow perception of youth, through six poems that I wrote when I was younger. I aim to explore their causes and implications, from the perspective of the (relative) lucidity that I have now, having grown away from the hurt that infuses their words. And perhaps, in doing so, I can provide closure to both my past, and the past of anyone who has suffered from the “disease” of being young.
This last poem of the series happens to be the second part of the poem collectively known as “Deathbed Delusions” (the first part of this poem was covered in my previous article). I wrote it at the same time as my first one, last summer. That summer was the first time I was truly honest with myself about my youth, about the nature of my mistakes and their repercussions; and this poem was the first poem that ever truly examined my intentions and my flaws. There has been five poems in this series so far, covering a history of my youth which hopefully resonates with anyone who suffers from mental illness — but these five poems do not reach the heights that this poem did in laying everything out to be visible and noticeable. That was what my goal was, though only subconsciously: to write what has really happened in my life compared to what I sought to pretend happened.
This is something I’m sure most youth do at one point or another: romanticize their life, to make things appear more pretty even though it’s a lie or at the very least a distortion. To me, this poem broke past all those boundaries, and it flowed out like the juices of some fruit that had been ripened and ready for a long while inside me. And I do think, in a tone of conclusion, that we should all experience a moment in our lives when we stop pretending in any way at all, we take off all our masks, and we tell ourselves how we really feel, what we really think, where we come from and where we are going. Perhaps then we can know ourselves enough to remove what’s been hurting us, what’s been controlling us.
The title of this two part poem is Deathbed Delusions, because I pretended that I was on my deathbed when writing them: not because of any interest in death, but rather because I wanted it to be the death of everything I used to be that I no longer am: everything that hurt, all the bruises and scars that gather just from growing up. I wanted this poem to be a fresh start for me, and so calling this second half “Will, Revised” is especially poignant to me, because my fake will that I’m revising on my supposed deathbed is the real will that I am redirecting in my life toward places of goodness and away from places of hurt. This journey is unique to every one of us, but the one claim that I can make is that if we can’t help each other, at least we can support each other — and most importantly, make each other feel less alone. These are my final words, and here below is the final poem of this series. Thank you, and the best of luck in growing up.
Deathbed Delusions, Part 2: Will, Revised
And it was there,
As I fled back in ricochet to the masks of my Before,
That I at last revelled:
I had never in my life known the face of an After.
I strolled into the quicksand of my Future
And with skin glazed pure by Past
I sank with a smile
The way a match smiles on a dry summer day
I wanted flames
I know that now
And yet a bridge of kindling was to keep its form
I wanted pavement over a river of ashes
(With no inkling that one doomed the other)
And to walk over it like a pilgrim
Ever ready for self-immolation
I wanted to swallow sparks like medicine
And with igneous eyes to see
The pavement marble below me
The ashes a motion of stardust beneath
Though I knew neither
And neither wanted me
I wanted glory
But the selfish kind
That stains of recognition
And praises superstition
It was the will of my reach
That hid coy and mulled in deceit
A tumour that I obeyed like a tuner
That stretched my limbs beyond capacity
My scope displaced me, tossed me aside
Like a ragdoll ravaged
Of motor, motive, mobility
And of innocence in memory
I wanted virtue
But by condition and through constriction
Like an exercise in self-eugenics
It was by its limits an empty pursuit
For the infinity is fixed by the absolute
I did not grasp, much less seize the flash
That climbing virtues without valor
And against the patience of nature
Was like climbing steps as tall as trees
that slid with the silky syrup
Of my presumed trickle-down victories
Deluded is the man
That falls from grace in search of its sweetness
And so glory and virtue from the sickle of things
Rushed off hand in hand into the song the wind brings
And hid from me as angels from kings
And as children from strangers
And soft-whispered warnings
I wanted beauty
But far too much
I wanted honor
But not enough
When it had been so long
That want was do
And do was death
Alive was like a foreign tongue
But change was that touch
I had flinched from like the devil
At the age of nine
And flinching grew to be my stagnation
Flinching and running and closing my eyes
Until its touch was the only exception
To the rot that had befallen every sensation
To ripen
To mature
What a thought
Cool as marble
Fine as stardust
To ripen without rust
To mature without moulder—
What kind of soldier?
What battle of backward?
What loan for what’s lost?
And at what brave, at what foul, at what desperate cost?
It has now been I the child
That hides from strangers
Though they wear the face of a parent
And I the mask of a trespasser
I have laid here long enough
To know what it is to stand for something
And I have held nothing but wither longer enough
To know the unstoppable growth of all that is living
Here it is as I revise
That I remiss the ricochet
And find a state that will not stray
I now embrace the meaning
Of Before and After convening
Of the forever-form and -motion
And truth’s devouring devotion
And here it is
As sickle sets sight on sow
That for the first moment
In the last of moments
I will to live
And seek to grow